The present invention relates generally to a heat sink, and more particularly, to a heat sink arrangement for removing heat from electrical components.
As technology advances, computer components and other electrical components continue to decrease in size. Additionally, more and more components are disposed in a continually decreasing area. Further, the various electrical components are typically disposed within a closed housing or compartment, or alternatively, a portion of a housing. These factors are coupled with the typical situation that electrical components, such as electrical components in computers, generate heat. This creates a problem related to the dispersion of the generated heat.
That is, as components are made smaller and packed more tightly into an area, it becomes more and more difficult to effectively disperse heat from those components. If heat is not dispersed effectively from the components, this can result in the components operating at an increased temperature. However, as should be appreciated, such operation at an increased temperature often leads to the degradation of the electrical component, especially over a period of time.
Accordingly, it is known to provide heat sinks to cool electrical components. However, in a manner similar to the electrical components themselves, there is a desire to decrease the size of the heat sinks. This decrease in size of a heat sink is balanced with a concern that the decreased size heat sink will not be able to sufficiently cool an electrical component.
A traditional heat sink, for example, includes a core structure upon which fins are mounted. The core structure is suitably thermally coupled with the electrical component that the heat sink is intended to cool. As a result, the thermal energy passes from the electrical component to the core structure. In turn, the thermal energy passes from the core structure to the fins of the heat sink. The thermal energy is dissipated from the fins utilizing a suitable medium passing by the fins, such as air or liquid, i.e., a fluid. However, this traditional structure often cannot perform cooling given the space constraints. There are other heat sink arrangements. However, these other arrangements also suffer from space limitation drawbacks, as well as other shortcomings.
Accordingly, it is desired to provide a heat sink for effectively cooling electrical components given the limited space constraints of emerging technology. The present invention addresses this need as well as others.